Facebook is the largest social network on the planet, with over 900 million active users. Facebook is one of the largest used software platforms in the world, and it would only make sense for the multi-million dollar company to move from a strictly software based strategy and get involved in the hardware game. They tried doing that recently with a Facebook-HTC partnership, but it never took off. This was similar to the Apple-Motorola ROKR, which was the first cellphone that was compatible with iTunes. Like Apple, it looks like Facebook wants to take over complete control over its phone. In doing this, they’ve picked up some former Apple engineers that worked on the iPhone and iPad.

Supposedly, Zuck is worried that if Facebook does not get into the hardware biz, then they’ll just be seen as an application on multiple platforms, and not as a full, unified experience.

The Times, who posted about Facebook’s aspirations, also mentioned that another reason for the real “Facebook Phone” (or Buffy, as it’s being called internally), is that Facebook is looking for new sources of revenue, to supplement it’s recent IPO.

Whatever the case, it looks like there’s going to be some new competitors for Apple and Google.

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